Mobile pastoralists facing big mining projects: looking for rights and direct representation through a case in Niger

Abstract (English)

One of the issues mobile pastoralists face in many places around the world is mining. Big mining projects are destroying land, affecting water levels and causing pollution in different forms and degrees. It is of crucial importance mobile pastoralists rights (Gilbert 2014) to access unpolluted pasture and water and to manage their own cultural identity are respected.
To achieve this, there needs to be a legal frame including Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, which should include not only different levels of official representatives but also guarantee time and means to implement proper participation of mobile households in ESIA (Sternberg and Ahearn 2023).
Here we will consider the situation in Niger regarding uranium mining legal frame and representation of mobile pastoralists. While pastoralist law protects right to mobility and access to pastures for pastoralists, mining law gives priority to the interests of the state. Environmental law with ESIA opens option for regulating environmental and social damage mining would cause. However, ESIA remains weak in including actual mobile herders. The furthest it got is in the latest case of Dasa ming project, corrected only after pressure of civil society organisations. The questions open, who, if anybody, riches mobile households using the contested land, who informs them about consequences? Why focus remains limited to village chiefs and offered Corporate social responsibility promises? What are the contested interests in mining including regional and local community’s level? Is a state in military regime changing its attitude to mobile pastoralists regarding mining ?
And finally, how could IYRP offer an opportunity for global common pressure arguing for direct participation of mobile pastoralists’ households in decision making and monitoring regarding big mining projects?